Constructs of children’s learning in rural communities often go beyond learning as schooling alone. One concept which has been applied to try to understand conceptions of learning is parental ethnotheories. Parental ethnotheories are the cultural belief systems which underpin parents’ organisation of the everyday lives of children (Harkness & Super, 1996). They are cultural models evident in taken for granted notions about the right way to act, with particular application for children. Parental ethnotheories constitute one of the components of a child’s developmental niche, the others being 1) children’s physical and social settings; and 2) the culturally regulated customs of childcare and bearing. (Harkness & Super, 1996). The concept has been applied across various ethnocultural groups around the world, including indigenous and rural African societies, and studies have typically focused on parents’ beliefs around their valued traits and aptitudes for children (e.g., Nsamenang & Lamb, 1993; Harkness & Super, 1992; Harkness et al., 2010).  For example, among the Kipsigis in Kenya, parents valued domestic chores and younger sibling care for girls while for boys, they valued the caring for livestock, and the independent carrying out of minor domestic repairs (Harkness & Super, 1992). For parents, these duties developed children’s socially responsible intelligence, the absence of which was evident in children who neglected their duties to play (Super et al., 2011). In other parts of Africa including, among the Tchokwe (Angola), Touareg, Hadza (Tanzania), Igbo (Nigeria), others have also identified gender differentiation of children’s chores and other work types (Lancy, 2016).

In this paper, the concept of parental ethnotheories is broadened slightly to include parents’ beliefs about the broad range of daily activities for children and the purpose those activities fulfil. The paper focuses on the Yorùbá in Nigeria and existing evidence had shed light into some of their ethnotheoretical constructs. Levine et al.’s (2003) late 1960s study of Yorùbá fathers, in rural and urban settings, found that rural fathers more greatly valued children’s practical skills acquired through the running of household errands and completion of tasks. Zeitlin’s (1996) late 1980s study corroborated this, finding that Yorùbá parents accorded primacy to children’s errand-completion capabilities. For parents, such capabilities also inculcated the necessary social skills children required for verbal and commercial transactions. Other studies have shown similar findings where Yorùbá parents assigned children household duties and sent them on errands, as well as trained them to be responsible, helpful and to respectfully relate with others, particularly those of age seniority (Ogunnaike & Houser, 2002; Omobowale et al., 2019). For parents, these practices contributed to the development of an Ọmọlúàbí, – a person of good character – a central concept in Yorùbá beliefs around child rearing and social cohesion (Busari et al., 2017) and one of the goals of Yorùbá traditional education (Akinyemi, 2003). The concept of ethnotheories will be used in this paper to frame the historical and socioculturally situated set of shared ideas representing implicit notions about the appropriate ways to think, act, and be (Harkness & Super, 2006).

The following research questions are explored:

• What ideas underpin Yorùbá parents’ organisation of their children’s everyday activities?
• How do these ideas interconnect?

Observations of organisation of children’s everyday activities are a particularly useful starting point to understand parental ethnotheories (Harkness et al., 2006). In this study, observations of children were complemented with interviews (Rubin & Rubin, 2012) with parents about their beliefs around what children should learn. The findings are drawn from a broader study on parents’ perspectives and practices around schooling in rural communities in a state in Northern Nigeria. Fieldwork for the broader ethnographic study occurred in two stages, through an initial extended five-month period and a month-long follow-up period, the subsequent period which enabled some validation of the ideas from the previous. Two small predominantly Muslim communities, each with at least a primary school, were selected for the study. Men engaged in commercial driving (communityA) and farming (communityB) while women across both communities farmed and engaged in small-scale, off-farm micro-enterprises, including the sale of farm products, snacks or provisions. CommunityA is considered less rural than its counterpart as it is nearer to the state capital. As such, more families in communityB farm both for subsistence and small-scale commerce, selling their products at a market in a nearby town. Economic challenges have also meant that many communityA fathers supplement their livelihoods with subsistence and small scale farming. The interviews with parents were partially structured, i.e., gently guided discussions (Rubin & Rubin 2012), while casual age-appropriate interactions were undertaken with children in sight of their parents or an adult about their activities. All interactions were conducted in Yorùbá, the first language of the author. Participant observation, the central method in ethnography (Delamont 2016), entailed balancing participation—involvement and subjectivity – with observation—distance and objectivity – while capturing data (O’Reilly, 2012). Children’s observations occurred after school in the afternoons and early evenings and children assented (or did not), once consent was obtained from a parent. 37 children were involved in observations and interactions across both communities, while 97 parents participated in either individual or group conversations. Notes were recorded in notebooks and on the author’s mobile phone. Thematic analysis was used to transcribe, code and identify themes or patters of meaning within the data (Braun & Clark, 2013), with the aid of Nvivo12 qualitative software. Given all interactions were conducted in the local language, transcription involved translation.

When asked to elaborate on their understanding of ‘learn’, a term parents had used widely to explain why they sent their children to school, parents conceptualised two types of learning: learning at home and learning outside. For learning at home, parents positioned themselves as teachers who teach children to care for their bodies, the home, the natural environment; to run errands, including those contributing to the household economy; to behave ‘properly’; and to relate with others in the community. Learning outside consisted of three elements: learning in the formal school, at the Islamic school, and with a craftsperson or Master trainer. Formal school learning was the purview of schoolteachers who taught children to read and write in English and Yorùbá, as well as learn other subjects to gain knowledge and skills which will hopefully lead to employment. In Islamic learning, children were taught to recite the Quran so that they may know how to effectively pray, particularly during life’s inevitable challenges. Learning a trade or a skill was vital so that children may be able to generate income through the application of these skills, particularly where schooling does not lead to the hoped for salaried employment. Although a traditional practice which has been somewhat neglected with the massification of schooling, steep national graduate unemployment has seen the resurgence of learning a trade / skill and its valuing amongst rural, and even, urban parents. For parents, these dimensions are mutually reinforcing and thus work together to mould a faith-filled functional Ọmọlúàbí who becomes financially self-sufficient and can contribute to their immediate and extended family; contributes to communal development and harmony; and generally lives a life of ease. The findings suggest that Yorùbá parents have broadened their ethnotheories to take account the exigencies of contemporary lives, including its socio-economic dynamics (Abebe, 2007).

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